


call me home (and i will build a throne)

by kay_emm_gee



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Minor Finn/Clarke, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Among the frost-covered birch trees, Clarke crouched low in the barren brush. The muddy snow on the ground caked her overly worn boots. Her breath fogged as she notched an arrow silently, staring at the tawny hide of the large buck across the clearing. Though she had drawn the bow silently--her father had taught her well--the buck picked up his head in alarm.</p><p>Clarke’s heartbeat stuttered as she stared at the now-revealed tangle of towering, twisting silver antlers--two sets of them--atop the animal’s head.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Fae</em></p><p> </p><p>{ A Bellarke AU based on A Court of Thorns and Roses / A Court of Mist and Fury }</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because I read ACoMaF last night and freaked out, now I'm speed writing an AU of the series. Wrote this in one day, hopefully will have the next chapter out by the weekend (no promises tho!)

****Among the frost-covered birch trees, Clarke crouched low in the barren brush. The muddy snow on the ground caked her overly worn boots. Her breath fogged as she notched an arrow silently, staring at the tawny hide of the large buck across the clearing. Though she had drawn the bow silently--her father had taught her well--the buck picked up his head in alarm.

Clarke’s heartbeat stuttered as she stared at the now-revealed tangle of towering, twisting silver antlers-- _two_ sets of them--atop the animal’s head.

_Fae._

Her entire being sung with the danger of thinking that word, of realizing what her prey actually was. It pitched higher, hotter, until she was nearly burning with anger. That creature and others of his ilk were the reason (or at least one of the reasons) her father was dead.

_Murdered._

Her rage reached a breaking point, and swiftly, she stood, loosing the arrow before she lost her nerve. If she killed him-- _it_ , she sneered--then what was left of the town her father tried to save would be a little bit safer.

She was one of the best archers in her town, but still she was surprised when her arrow sunk into the buck’s flank. It brayed out in pain, stumbling in the snow as it tried to escape. With the memory of her father’s laughter ringing in her ears, she grasped for two more arrows and sent them flying. They landed true, and before Clarke knew it, she was kneeling next to the dying animal.

Without hesitation, she reached for her knife and brought the blade to the animal’s throat. Right before she pressed it into the fur, however, she made the mistake of looking into its eye. Shock ran through her as something familiar, something known, something _human_ lingered there. She faltered for a moment, but then it stretched its neck and wheezed in pain.

_Please_ , it seemed to say. _Please._

Her blade sunk in, and as Clarke watched blood stain the snow crimson, she began to hum and kept humming until the creature before her closed its eyes for the last time.

* * *

 

When she returned to her cabin that night--hide slung over her shoulders--she tried to ignore the pang of regret at loosing that first arrow. The meat would feed her for weeks, and the hide was sure to fetch a hefty price at the market. Even so, as she prepared dinner in the house that night, she couldn’t help but wonder if her father would’ve been proud or disappointed at her choice.

He hadn’t disliked all Fae, just the ones who slipped through the Wall to prey on humans living too close to the border of Arkadia. Her father had been the one to seek out and map the holes in the Wall and bring it to the town council; he had thought they’d let the people know where the danger was, to protect them. Instead, his information was kept quiet, and he was punished, silenced, _killed_ because the council was so afraid of the townspeople leaving the area--and taking their prosperity with them--if they knew how much danger they were in.

Clarke smiled bitterly at the meager dinner on her plate. In the end, their secrecy had been for nothing. With the knowledge of the holes kept to the council--who could nor would do anything about it--the Fae kept coming through and terrorizing the people, who had began leaving in droves in the last year. Even Lexa had left her behind, even after a year together, even after Clarke begging her to stay. So the town fell into ruin, and her father had been killed for nothing.

So she hated the Fae for invading her home, but she hated the council more for their cowardice. Her father would tell her it was energy poorly spent to hate them, either of them, because what good do that do her or those few dozen people left in the town that she was driven to protect? Even so, she hated; she hunted and hated, and when she couldn’t do either of those, Clarke painted.

The entire house, every flat surface, was covered in doodles, murals, swashes of color and emotion. She painted her father’s eyes, his hands, the woods in summer, a rabbit after her first successful snare, a girl with golden hair standing in front of the Wall as it crumbled and fire burned beyond it. Her story and her dreams, all of it went onto the worn wood of her house’s walls and floors, nooks and crannies, doors and window frames. Everything was bright, all except the ceiling, which was a deep blue-black, spotted with glinting white pinpricks arranged in constellations she couldn’t name but painted with a bone-deep certainty anyways.

It was her salvation, especially on nights like this one when her grief was too close to the surface. Clarke would drag her blanket from her bed and lie looking up at the galaxies she had created, tracing their familiar pattern as the fire burned lower and lower. Once the last embers glowed down to black, it wasn’t long before her eyes fluttered closed, stars still dancing on the inside of her eyelids as sleep claimed her.

* * *

 

Clarke woke to hot, panting breath on her face. Her eyes flew open, a gag and a scream stuck in her throat as she took in the giant wolf standing above her. Scrambling, she backed herself away against the wall and reached for the dagger she kept at her belt even in sleep. The wolf bared his teeth a bit, but it was the human look in his eye-- _Fae Fae Fae_ , her heart thrummed--that frightened her more.

Her fear grew when he began to shift into a person, a man. Not man--Fae, and a High Lord at that, for they were the only ones who had such power.

He looked down on her with his dark eyes, softer than she expected, but his voice was hard as he said, “My name is Finn, and you killed my friend.”

* * *

 

Clarke couldn’t regret her decision to go with Finn, not even as trepidation fluttered in her chest as seeing the wonders and horrors that lay behind the Wall. If going with him to repay her blood debt for killing a High Fae-- _Atom was his name_ , Finn had rumbled at her--would save the town her father had given his life to protect, then she would hold her head high even as she walked beside him, in his wolf form, to her probable death. Mortals didn’t tend to do well in Arkadia, even if Finn had sworn to protect her.

She didn’t expect the grandeur of the Spring Court mansion, nor the eerie solitude that surrounded his home and his grounds. It was still and quiet aside from the warm breeze rustling through the tall light green grass and the few chirping birds. So like her home in the same season--but then she saw the sprites among the birch leaves and the nymphs peeking from the pond and the shadows that moved too quickly to be natural. They all watched her as she entered the gold-and-marble mansion for the first time, as she grew accustomed to her fate here, as she tried to figure Finn and his enigmatic smiles out. Weeks passed, and without having to fight for food and warmth and shelter anymore, she was rarely without a paintbrush in her hand. It was how her guard came down, letting her emotions splash out over the canvas for anyone to see. The only anyone around, however, was Finn, and his eyes widened when he saw her work.

“You feel so much,” he said.

She shrugged, cheeks heating at the way his fingers brushed against her paintings, the very window to her soul. “Painting is a way for me to feel connected.”

“I wish I--” He paused, looking away. “I wish I knew how to do that.”

A breath, a step, a hand to his cheek. “You’re not alone.”

Finn kissed like spring should, soft and gentle. Clarke fought against the tide of want rising in her, the dark and greedy wave that was too much for the way he held her. Finn held her like she was glass, as if he could break her. Being Fae, he probably could; she had seen what he would do to those who were his enemies, to those who would harm her when they had come after her one afternoon in the woods. Like unyielding bedrock underneath a flower meadow, he was. Now, though, he was just gentle, and his lips and hands felt like the warm brush of sunlight.

When he carried her up to bed, Clarke couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She didn’t for the rest of the night, or any night the spent together.

* * *

 

It all came crashing down a few weeks later when she found the sculpture room. The contorted metal structures ranged from tiny to enormous, sharp to smooth, all beautiful in a way that made them hard to look at.

“Who made these?” She asked breathlessly.

“Someone like you,” Finn said.

The tone of his voice made her push. “What do you mean?”

“An artist.”

A simple response, and a true one--whoever had made these was the type of artist Clarke hoped she’d be one day--but the pause he had taken to answer was far too long. She waited a few more days before slipping into his chambers while he was out on patrol and found the letters, the pictures, the history of who he had loved before her.

She found out the whole story when she captured the Suriel, a truthtelling spirit. Raven Reyes was a Fae from the Autumn Court, though it seemed something had forced her to abandon loyalty to them. From what Clarke could glean of the words spoken through gnashing, rotted teeth, Finn had taken Raven in and they had been together--friends, partners, lovers--for centuries. Her power over earth-born substances remained no matter how far she distanced herself from her home, and her loyalty to Finn was known throughout Arkadia. When Clarke asked where she was, the Suriel’s smile made her stomach sick.

“He sent her away when he went to get you,” it replied gleefully. The spirit’s vengeful words were just as painful to her as the enchanted rope she had used to string it up in her trap no doubt was. “She went willingly, because of what you mean to him and to this place, but she loves him still. Who could have guessed a mere human girl could cause all this trouble.”

It hacked out a dark laugh, one that made her stomach roil with guilt and shame. Still, it wasn’t enough to distract her. “What do you mean, what I mean to this place?”

“Oh, he has not told you?”

Clarke narrowed her gaze.

“Ah.” It smiled again, razor sharp. “He _cannot_ tell you.”

Suddenly Finn’s sudden silences mid-sentence, his pained stares, his bursts of frustrations when he couldn’t answer her questions sometimes made sense. The stagnation in the land--not dying, but not growing either--suddenly made sense, the prickling of dark power she felt whenever she walked the grounds. Understanding thrummed in her bones, one she had been ignoring since she had set foot beyond the Wall.

“He needs me...for what?” She asked.

The Suriel just smiled, and then it dropped free, having escaped its bond while she was thinking about its words. Rather than push her luck with the angered spirit, Clarke fled, its cackling still ringing in her ears hours after she had left it behind.

* * *

 

She managed to send a letter out the night before Finn returned from patrol, and a few days later, Raven was waiting at the door.

Finn went pale when Clarke let her in, and Raven’s jaw worked as he seemed to hover between the two of them. She had never seen the High Lord look so unsettled, so nervous.

“She asked me why she was here,” Raven ground out. “And since you can’t tell her, I will.”

He didn’t even get a chance to protest before Raven stalked into the nearest parlor, sitting down, and jerking her head sharply for Clarke to do the same. As she explained, Finn lurked in the doorway, pacing the more things became clear.

There was a curse on the land, set by a ruthless general of an ancient Fae Queen who lived north of Arkadia. General Cage was just a first taste of what the queen planned to reign down on the High Lords who had banished her centuries ago for daring to invade the human realm. He had slipped into Arkadia under the pretense of reconciliation but had enslaved most of the High Lords, bringing them to his stronghold under the Mountain. The Mountain had been a sacred Fae space until Cage had defiled it with his vile reign.

“Why is Finn not there?” Clarke asked carefully, wondering if he was allies with Cage.

“Because I refused to bow to him. I refused to submit to a reign where Fae of all kinds are enslaved to his queen’s will, where lesser Fae and humans are terrorized. I have--had the power to refuse when he took over.” There was a harshness to Finn’s voice she had never heard before, and it scared her and made her proud at the same time.

“So Cage punished you,” she surmised.

Raven finished explaining: Cage had turned Finn’s urging for mercy into a curse. His power would be drained and his people taken prisoner unless found a human to love him. And now, his time was running about before his power disappeared completely and Cage won. It was a cruel, clever punishment, Clarke had to admit, knowing how feared and reviled the Fae were beyond the Wall. Then her gut clenched as she realized how she suddenly fit into all of this.

She glanced at Raven--at the woman who had loved him, and would still love him, for longer than she would ever be alive--with sorrow and apology and at Finn with confusion and caution. Clarke knew she cared for Finn, and she worried what it would mean if Cage won Arkadia, giving the Queen access to the Wall and the humans she had sworn to protect beyond it by coming here. But did she _love_ Finn?

Clarke stood quietly, overwhelmed. Finn and Raven were silent as they watched her go, and they didn’t bother her that night. As she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling--and for the first time in a while missing the star-covered one in her old home--she tried to make the right choice. She didn’t know if she did love him, or if she could, but if it meant protecting her people, she had to _try._

She didn’t get a chance to tell him before the Reapers came.

* * *

 

Her letter to Raven had been her salvation and damnation both. Cage’s spies had tracked her return to the Spring Court and correctly surmised the reason. So now Clarke knew what she had to do to protect Arkadia and by extension the human realm, but now _they_ also knew what a danger she posed to the queen’s plans, and so they had taken her and Finn and Raven.

“So,” Cage drawled when they were thrown at the foot of this throne. “You have a found human who didn’t murder you on sight.”

Finn snarled at the smug king, but his mutilated Reaper guards held him back. Raven fought too and seemed to be giving her captors a harder time, almost slipping from their grasp twice.

“I tried, though,” Clarke rasped, even as she trembled with fear. Cage’s gaze zeroed in on her, cold and calculating. She tried not to shiver, to give away any weakness.

“Even better,” he said with a sickening smile. “What a story: hate turned to love, a Fae and mortal defying the odds.”

He looked to the dark court of Fae around him--some supporting him of free-will, most out of fear--and they laughed, the sycophantic sound ricocheting off the damp, dank walls of the underground Mountain palace.

“But how do we know if your hearts are true? If _her_ heart is true?”

A roar loosened from Finn’s lips when Cage proposed a contest of the three trials, only quieting when it came time for Clarke to give her answer.

“If I win these three trials, and prove my love for Finn, then you will set Arkadia free?” She clarified. “The Lords will get their power back and you will leave, never to return?”

Cage leaned forward on his throne, elbows braced on his knees, and smiled with malice. His second-in-command--Tsing--glowered down at her coldly, as if she was too inconsequential to address Cage at all.

“Yes,” the General replied. “If you win all three trials.”

“Done.”

Raven froze, Finn sagged, and Clarke went numb. She had made her choice--to stand up against injustice, to protect her people no matter the cost--but as she looked at the horror on her friends faces, the pity on the prisoners’, and the glee on her enemies’, Clarke wondered if letting loose that arrow on the winter day so long ago had been a mistake after all.

* * *

 

On the first full moon, Clarke faced her first trial, and as she sat in her dungeon cell afterwards, bloody and bruised with a broken arm and nose but also victorious, she just breathed, too exhausted to do much else. It had taken all of her hunting skills to defeat Pauna in the maze, but she had done it.

It hadn’t pleased Cage, that she had outsmarted his challenge. He took his revenge by ordering that her wounds were not to be treated. So she sat, pain coursing through her but unable to care about anything but being alive.

That wasn’t the case three nights later, when her throbbing arm and her growling stomach made her wish she had died in the first trial. So starved and distracted by the pain, she thought she was imagining the swirl of black smoke--darkness itself--that filled her cell suddenly.

“Maybe I shouldn’t bet on you this time, princess,” a familiar voice rumbled against the cold stone, against her tired ribcage.

“Go to hell,” Clarke spat as Bellamy kneeled beside her.

The High Lord of the Night Court grinned but didn’t back away. Dressed in black breeches and a loose tunic, his freckled, golden brown skin seemed at oddly bright for someone belonging to his court. His dark hair and darker eyes, however, made Clarke think of unending night. As he reached out to touch her injured arm, however, she thought of the way he had dug into the minds of the poor Fae who had been Cage’s latest victims. That was Bellamy’s greatest power--not even remotely dampened by the wards Under the Mountain--his ability to run his claws through private thoughts and ferret out truths and secrets. Cage wielded him like a weapon, and he didn’t fight Cage, not even an inch, which made him just as complicit. Everyone whispered about how Bellamy was one of the few to not resist the coup, a shock for such a volatile and headstrong leader but one that had damned Arkadia all the same.

“Get away from me,” she hissed, soiled straw rustling underneath her as she scooted away. Immediately she bit her lip from the way the movement painfully jostled her arm.

Bellamy scowled. “That needs to be healed.”

“Like you would ever go against Cage. You heard his orders.”

“I did.” Bellamy shrugged. “I also heard the one he gave just now, after a wonderfully argued plea from your lovely Spring Lord, that it was unfair for you to be at such a disadvantage in the next trial.”

Clarke’s heart leapt in her throat. Finn had stood up for her, despite all that he risked in the process. Distracted, she hadn’t realized Bellamy had wrapped his hands around her arm until he snapped the bone back into place. She screamed, swallowing it at the end out of pride and stubbornness. Her vision swam, and her eyes watered, and she chalked up the hardness in Bellamy’s eyes--a sympathetic hardness--to the pain-induced daze.

“So you just obey? Whatever he says? Heal me, don’t heal me?” She managed to pant out after a beat, after realizing he was still kneeling beside her.

“I argued for you to be healed too.”

That made her pause. One corner of his mouth quirked up, and Clarke stared, wondering what game he was playing now. High Fae always played games, always had another motive, _always._ She just needed to figure out what the High Lord of the Night Court was doing playing a game with her. He was the one who had hauled her out of Pauna’s pit after all, when the rest had laughed at her feeble attempts to climb the metal walls with a broken arm. As she had dangled in the air, his hand around her wrist and the only thing keeping her from falling and breaking her neck, she had seen something in his eyes, something that had taken root inside her, unable to be pulled out.

She felt that seed grow now as she stared at him in the dank cell, her arm in less but still considerable pain, her lips chapped, her spirit so close to broken.

“Why?” She finally managed to whisper. _Why me?_

He blinked, cocking his head at her, a flash of softness surging across his face. Then he gave her a hard smile. “Because I have a bet to win. I put a lot of money on you again for the next trial, so a broken arm would cost us both. Also, try to do better this time. I won’t always be around to nurse your wounds.”

As she spat at him, he stood and vanished into the dark again, leaving Clarke bitter and contemplating losing just to spite his arrogant ass.

When solitude crept in once more, however, she remembered what was at risk, and fear coursed through her again, fear that she would fail and damn the world to Cage’s and his queen’s wrath.

* * *

 

Bellamy came again, a few nights later, as she sweated and fought against writhing from the infection that setting the bone had done nothing to prevent.

“Cage give another order?” She panted as he crouched beside her. “Thinks it won’t be as fun to watch me die if I’m in this pathetic state?”

“I can heal you,” he answered, which wasn’t much of an answer at all, at least not for the questions she had.

_Why me why me why me._

“Clarke.” He gripped her chin with surprisingly rough fingers, forcing her to focus on his furrowed expression. “I can heal you.”

She barked out a weak laugh. “What are you waiting for then?”

Clarke wished she was disappointed when he didn’t move, just raised an eyebrow. She wanted to laugh again, but instead tears welled up. Of course he wouldn’t help her without a price.

“What do you want?” She bit out.

She expected a chuckle, or a smart remark. Instead, Bellamy quietly said, “Two weeks.”

“What?”

“When you win, you will spend two weeks with me every month for as long as you live. The other two you spend with Finn, with Raven, beyond the Wall, wherever you want. But I get those two weeks.”

“No.”

He frowned. “That infection will kill you.”

She gasped in dark amusement. “The trials will kill me, you ass.”

“Did I not say _when_ you win?”

“And you’re never wrong?”

His eyes glinted in the darkness, shining like stars. “Not about this.”

Her heart clenched at his certainty, and guilt filled her, because she didn’t have near that level of confidence that she would succeed. As she stared at him though, at his unflinching expression, Clarke’s heart stuttered and a small flame flickered to life inside her.

“One week.”

His eyebrows rose. “Ten days.”

“One week,” she insisted, struggling to sit up. She wouldn’t budge on this, and she needed to appear strong to win this bargain.

Bellamy considered her carefully, his hand hovering over her forearm. “One week.”

His fingers clamped down lightning-fast, as if he was wary that she would retract her agreement. Her blood seemed to boil and then freeze in her veins, and the skin of her injured arm prickled. When spots appeared in her vision, she tried to fight the darkness pulling her under. The last thing thought about was the way Finn held her, the way he kissed her, the way he made her feel warm inside, but the last thing she saw were Bellamy’s eyes before everything went black.

* * *

 

She showed up to her second trial with a weak but healing body and a curling, intricate silver tattoo on her arm as mark of her bargain with the High Lord of the Night Court. Finn couldn’t take his eyes, which burned with fury, off of it, not even to give her a reassuring glance as she walked into the arena. If it saved Finn, the Fae, her people, Clarke would make the bargain again and again, even if it felt like a betrayal now.

So instead she glared at Bellamy, who was standing beside Cage and Tsing, smirking. Something gentle but insistent brushed against her mind and then she heard his taunting voice inside her head: _don’t lose._

In retaliation, she turned her back on him, shoulders tensely set as the arena gate clanged shut.

* * *

 

Bellamy appeared in her cell later that night. She barely had the will to look over at him lingering in the corner, hands tucked behind his back.

“That was cruel, even for Cage,” he murmured quietly, dangerously.

Clarke turned from him and stared at the grey stone instead. The terrified shouts of the captured humans in the cage came back to her, as did the feel of the metal lever underneath her hand. Pull the right one, and she saved them. Pull the wrong one, and they would be incinerated. Cage had men, women, elderly, _children_ in the pen. Panic had taken over her, and her stomach lurched sickeningly as she remembered the paralysis that came with it.

For so long her hand had hovered over the levers, mind racing to figure out which one. Now she also remembered the way warmth had surged up her arm, changing in intensity as she moved her palm over each handle. Clarke hadn’t dared look at Bellamy, but she still reluctantly let their bargain bond--let _him_ \--guide her into choosing correctly.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. She may have won, but Cage torched the prisoners anyways. Bellamy had caught her as she lunged for them, screaming curses and pleas in turn. Tsing had ordered her to be hauled away, and she continued yelling as they dragged her from the throne room, watching as Finn sat unmoving, powerless, with haunted eyes beside them. The scent of burning flesh and hair lingered in her nose, even now.

“Their lives were forfeit the moment they were taken, Clarke.”

She flinched away from his comfort. “They were taken _because_ of me. For this trial, for this horrific--”

“Their deaths _were not_ your fault,” he argued heatedly, and she heard him stride forward. Clarke curled further into the wall when she felt his heat at her side.

“These trials, they had to be done,” he muttered. “Without you, Arkadia and your world don’t even have a chance at survival. With you fighting, they have hope.”

She was too tired to laugh derisively or to push him away. Instead, she closed her eyes and whispered, “Go.”

“No.”

“Go away.”

Bellamy just sighed, settled onto the floor beside her, and stayed quiet. Eventually, as much as she wished she resented his presence, Clarke took comfort in the steady rhythm of his breathing. It was calming enough that she didn’t want to break their truce by asking how exactly he managed to visit her down here when no one else-- _Finn_ , her heart whined--did. No one else risked Cage’s wrath by showing support for the human girl who was his temporary plaything and who he was planning on leaving broken.

Broken, because Clarke had no illusions of how this would end, not anymore. Even if by some miracle she won the trials, Cage still would have taken something from her, something that not even Bellamy and all his Night Court power would know how to heal.

Still, she didn’t resist when Bellamy took her hand and squeezed, whispering, “We’ll see about that.”

“Get out of my head.”

“Go to sleep, and I will.”

She huffed in annoyance but didn’t untangle her fingers from his, and his thumb stroking her knuckles helped her drift off into oblivion.

* * *

 

Tears streamed down Clarke’s face as she stood in front of the third hooded kneeling Fae. She should’ve expected the final trial to be the hardest, but cold-blooded murder was even beyond what she had imagined Cage would dream up.

The bodies of the two Fae she had killed with an ash dagger to the heart lay on the flagstone floor beside the last victim, their black blood pooling at her feet. Some in the crowd wept--relations, no doubt--and others looked at Cage with hatred. No one looked at her with anything but desperation and pity; she was their last hope for freedom, and time was running out. Cage didn’t seem to see any of that, focused on Clarke and how she clutched the dagger in her shaking hand.

“Unveil,” Tsing commanded dully, as if bored by the spectacle. Hatred surged through Clarke, hatred for the clear lack of empathy in the killing, especially of her own kind.

Dread surged through her as the hood came off and she met familiar brown eyes. Raven’s screams echoed through the hall, and Clarke’s blood ran cold from the devastated sound.

“Finn,” she choked. Revulsion ran through her, and she nearly dropped the dagger in shock. “No!”

Cage chuckled loudly. “Come, now. Not so high a price to pay is it, for the freedom of his people? What High Lord wouldn’t die to protect his lands and his nation?”

The room shifted palpably, because the Fae all knew death was too close to all of them in the world that Cage reigned in. Clarke trembled as she stared down at Finn, at the Fae Lord who had turned her hatred into something softer but just as strong, despite having his heart half-belong to another, despite letting Cage’s lackey comfort her instead of doing it himself. She _loved_ him, she did she did she did--after all, wasn’t what all of this horror had been for? If she loved him, he went free. If she loved him, they all went free. If she loved him, then the people her father had given his life to protect would be safe.

If she loved him, she would have to kill him.

As deathly silence fell over the room, punctuated only by Raven’s furious sobs, Clarke looked at Finn with tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and then drove the dagger right into his heart.

A sharp shattering sound bounced around the room, and Clarke looked at the broken weapon in her hand, no longer wooden but metal. She gaped at Finn’s unpunctured chest, and the metal pieces that rested at his knees. Someone had switched the dagger for one that wouldn’t hurt him, as only ash tree wood was fatal to the High Fae.

Cage roared, and guards surrounded her and Finn. Snapping to, Clarke brandished the small blade at them, not caring if it was a useless effort. She had fought so long and so hard, she wasn’t going to give up now. Finn rose, a solid presence at her side as they faced off against Cage’s minions.

“Finish her,” Cage ordered, and the captain of his guard, Emerson, strode forward, eyes glinting meanly.

“You cannot break our bargain!” Clarke shouted, fury racing through her. “We had a bargain! I won, and now we go free! You go back to whatever--”

“Ah, you won, yes, and will abide by our terms. But you never specified _when_ I had to honor the terms,” he drawled.

Clarke squeezed her broken blade so tightly that the jagged edges almost slide through her palm. Outrage at his trickery and self-directed anger for not anticipating it warred in her chest while her heart beat as violently as a wardrum.

Before she could protest, however, Cage raised his hand, and Emerson lunged. Finn was pulled from her, shouting, and suddenly there were hands around her neck squeezing. She choked, scrabbling at the warrior’s thick fingers, desperate for air. In the distance, she heard Bellamy shout, then a loud bang, and Cage laughing.

“You betray me, for _her_?”

Bellamy growled, and right before red filled her vision, she saw him throw a dagger--an ash dagger--at Cage. Then she only could see Emerson’s smirking face and feel the last of her precious air leave her lungs. With one more cruel squeeze from his hands, she heard her neck snap and then felt nothing.

* * *

 

As she floated in warmth and dark, aimless, Clarke was almost relieved it was over: the burden of loving and fighting and being the one to save them all.

Then something tugged at her center, a thread, one that not even death had severed. The flow of warmth propelled her in the opposite direction, but the thread tugged back, and silver flashes arced across the darkness. The tug grew stronger, turning to a pull and then a jerk. Panicking, she tensed up, caught in the push and pull of the peace ahead of her and the pain she had left behind.

_Need._

_Need you._

_I need you, Clarke._

She almost didn’t recognize his voice at first, but the feel of its presence in her mind was recognizable. Bellamy was calling to her, through their bargain bond. He needed her. She was at peace, but he needed her.

The warmth continued to flow, and flow away this time. Shivers wracked through Clarke, and she trembled from the chill now coursing through her. Slowly her hands and feet grew numb, then her limbs, her center, her chest, her heart. The pressure was unbearable, from not feeling, and it grew with a whine until she shattered, like ice breaking under the force of a hammer.

Her eyes flew open and she gasped for breath, feeling small and uncontainable all at once. When hands tried to help her up, Clarke lashed out, fist connecting with bone.

Finn swore, and Clarke stared at him, his bloody nose, and then the wet blackness on her hands. Shocked murmurers rose up from the crowd, and his eyes went wide as he realized what she had done.

Her own head still spun. She shouldn’t have been able to hurt him; no human could ever injure a Fae with just a punch.

“How--”

“You have been Made.”

Clarke whipped around on the stone floor, searching for him. Bellamy stood, tired but triumphant, a few feet away. There was a large gash on his face, and his left arm hung limply by his side.

“What do you mean?” She demanded, realizing for the first time how much richer her voice sounded. She also realized Cage was dead, as were most of his guards, a trail of blood leading to some nearby Fae and to Bellamy.

“By the power of the seven High Lords of Arkadia, we Made that which was mortal immortal,” he recited, a tinge of exasperation behind the formality.

She didn’t understand. “I was dead.”

“Dying.”

“Dead, dying, what difference--”

“It matters,” he interrupted, voice raw in a way that had much of the Fae crowd looking between the two of them curiously. “You are now immortal. You are now Fae, a thanks for the life you were willing to give to save us.”

“And the Wall? It is safe? My people are safe?”

“They’re not your people anymore,” Finn said softly, a hopeful light in his eyes. “You belong to us now.”

Then he pulled her into his arms, whispering things about _home_ and _safety_ and _love_ in her ear, but Clarke merely stared at Bellamy over his shoulder and the way he turned away from the two of them, his jaw working.

_They’re safe_ , his voice whispered in her mind, and then he was striding away.

* * *

 

He only came to her on the morning she was to depart Under the Mountain with Finn to return to Spring Court. She ignored the soft rustle of his arrival, choosing to stare at the disturbing painting on her bedroom wall instead.

“Not what I thought your taste in art would be,” he commented smoothly.

She didn’t even turn her head. “It isn’t.”

Or it hadn’t been; maybe it should be. Her soul still felt heavy, even as her body was stronger and movements more lithe. Immortality was like a second skin she couldn’t shed, one that she would just have to get used to wearing even if it felt like a costume. The rest of the darkness now sewn into her soul, that she wasn’t sure she ever would get used to, or should.

“You’re leaving today.”

“I am.”

He remained silent for a while, and she hated it, the way she could feel him still, the way her tattoo tingled in his presence. Her love for Finn had saved them all--which was why she was going back with him, because why wouldn’t she return to the home of the Fae for whom her love had been all of their salvation--but it was the thread that connected her to Bellamy that brought her back from death. Her fingers twitched.

He must have noticed because he said in amusement, “Our bargain still stands, of course.”

“What?” She whipped her glare towards him.

“One week every month with me in the Night Court.”

“You can’t be serious!” As incredulous as she sounded, her pulse still raced in anticipation. No one visited the Night Court, the most secret of all the High Fae lands, and no one who snuck in came out again. Even so, after seeing where his true loyalties lay on the day of her third trial--with the rebellion, with the Fae, with justice, with _her_ \--she had thought the bargain was just a lie to keep Cage in the dark, that he was an inside man forced to do terrible things in the name of the bigger picture. She hadn’t expected Bellamy to hold her to their deal.

He sighed. “Are you going back on our bargain?”

She pursed her lips at his flippant tone and his clear confidence in knowing she wouldn’t break it.

“Not what I expected from you,” she said tightly instead.

“What did you expect?”

She turned the full force of her disappointment on Bellamy, and then settled her hand on top of his. “Something better.”

He froze under her touch, his eyes widening with surprise and something else entirely. Clarke blinked, though, and then his expression shuttered and his mouth twisted into a mocking smile.

“Too bad,” he said, pulling away from her grip. “And see you soon, princess.”

Her retort died in her mouth as large, black feathered wings emerged from his back and he took off into the towering vertical cavern that lead to the surface above the Mountain. The sight of him flying-- _flying_ \--took her breath away, from surprise, from awe. Clarke swallowed tightly as he shrunk to nothing more than another smudge in the darkness, wondering just how soon she would see Bellamy again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been three months since Under the Mountain. Three months of hollowness inside her and three months of Finn treating her like something breakable. Three months without Bellamy calling in their bargain either-until one afternoon all that changes. And as much as she resists and resents it, her monthly week with the High Lord of the Night Court begins to give Clarke a new perspective and, maybe, even a new beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is taking me longer than I thought so I'm gonna split ACOMAF AU into two chapters thus: here's part 1 to tide you guys over :)

It had been three months since Under the Mountain.

Three months of paralyzing nightmares and quiet moments of understanding, three months of horrible memories and staring at place on Finn’s chest, right over his heart, where the dagger would’ve gone in. Where it went in on two other Fae–she could sometimes still see their black blood on her hands, coating them and caking under her fingernails like the dust of her charcoal used to do. Used to do, because she hadn’t sketched or painted in months; she had no desire to, not anymore.

Three months of slipping her hands from Finn’s because Raven was just around the corner, three months of wishing she knew her before him because then everything would be different. They would all be happier.

Three months without hearing a word from Bellamy, for all that the silver tattoo on her arm was there. Glinting, winking, _teasing_ , a constant reminder of the promise she made Under the Mountain and the terrifying, scaring reasons she had needed to make a deal with a devil.

Three months, and for once her stomach wasn’t heaving violently in her dark bedroom. Instead, it is heaving as she walked by Finn’s side up the aisle in the courtyard. Ahead sat two thrones–hers was smaller–made of bronze metal stumps and roots and vines with gold and silver flowers decorating the top. They were fit for the High Lord of Spring and his consort.

A flash of anger went through her–Echo had been the one to call her consort, and you didn’t argue with a Priestess–but soon enough the nausea overwhelmed her again. A few more steps, and the thrones grew closer. Finn’s grip tightened on her hand; it just made her want to tug away harder. Panic beat with frantic wings against her ribcage, scratching to get out. It clawed at her, until she felt like she was bleeding from the inside out. With a quiet, gasping breath, Clarke froze. She didn’t care that the entire Spring court was watching her. She didn’t care she was clutching the frothy skirts of her voluminous dress. She didn’t care that the facade of her heroism was falling for all of their allies to see.

She knew she couldn’t do this.

Finn drew closer, voice soft. “Clarke?”

She tried to smile, as she always did when he comforted her after a nightmare (she never could return the favor; he just shifted and ran into the night whenever he cried out in sleep-induced terror). His hand steadied her lower back, and she could feel Echo’s insistent stare from the dais. Titterings went through the crowd in a wave, and just like that, her feet turned lead-like.

_She couldn’t do this. She didn’t want to be the savior anymore; she didn’t want to be the girl who brought down the Mountain. She just wanted to be away, anywhere else, with anyone else, please please **please** –_

“Aren’t you supposed to be sitting on your throne, not staring at it?”

Clarke jerked her head up to find Bellamy–dark eyes, smirking mouth, clothed in navy blue and black–standing in the middle of the aisle. Immediately she straightened to face him head on; at the same time, though, the panic in her chest quieted. It was a soft brush of wings now, nervous rather than frantic.

“Get the fuck out,” Finn growled. He stepped between Clarke and Bellamy, and when she glanced down, she saw his nails lengthening into his wolf claws. “You’re not taking her.”

“You’re right. I’m not _taking_ her because she’s not one of your flowers to pick and do with what you would,” Bellamy snapped back. “She has a choice. Whether she wants to come with me.”

Clarke glanced down at the tattoo, which was now warm and crackling with energy. Finn did the same and snarled.

“Like hell she has a choice,” he shouted. Clarke felt a bit of resentment spike because _he_ wasn’t going to take away her choice either, no matter how much his fear had been making decisions for her lately. This ceremony was one of the first times she had been outside for more than an hour without guards surrounding her–and if she was being honest, it was the first time she had realized that.

“Clarke?” Bellamy prompted. “I gave you three months, and now I’m coming to ask if you will choose to keep your word.”

“What choice is it when we all know what happens when you break a bargain bond?” Finn fumed. Clarke heard the quiet whisper of bones crunching, and she placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. It would be a bloodbath if he shifted and attacked Bellamy.

“It’s just a week,” she reassured him. Finn breathed heavily and glared at Bellamy for a few more moments.

When he looked back at her, it was with sorrow. “You don’t have to go with him.”

“If I don’t, we’ll risk everything I–we fought so hard for.”

Finn framed her cheeks with his hands, the scrape of the claws against her skin sending a shiver down her spine. “I’ll come for you, if you need me.”

Clarke nodded, just wanting to leave. Finn wouldn’t let her go though, his own frustration at not protecting her from this making him draw her closer. She wanted with every fiber of her being to pull back, to pull away, _if she could just pull away_.

With a low growl of annoyance, Bellamy strode forward. Clarke watched as Finn’s eyes flashed, but then Bellamy’s arm was around her waist. Darkness wrapped around the rest of her as time and space stretched to accommodate the two of them.

She exhaled harshly when light finally reached her eyes again, and then she gasped. Where Spring Court had been wood and linen, and Under the Mountain had been stone and velvet, the Night Court was unending metal and glass and silk. She stood on a balcony overlooking a dark pine forest, with a snow-capped mountain range in the distance. A breeze, fresh and cool, spun around her, and some loose strands of hair tickled her cheeks. Walking to the railing, she looked down and felt her stomach drop.The floor was glass, and she could see right through to the ground yards and yards beneath her.

“It’s safe.”

The sound of Bellamy’s voice was like cool water poured over a burn–painful and soothing at the same time. The singed parts of her soul were still too blistered, too raw though, and she whipped around. Blood rushed in her ears as she took him in, leisurely leaning against the wide doorframe to the inside of his palace.

“I thought it was _my_ choice to leave or not,” she hissed.

He snorted. “It was. And you made your choice.”

“I did no–”

_Yes, you **did**_ , his voice echoed in her mind, quiet but firm. Clarke glared at him, fury bubbling up inside her (he was right, after all).

“Get out of my head,” she seethed.

_I’ll get out when you can push me out_ , he challenged. Then he smirked at her, and she lost it. Without thinking, she grabbed the one thing she had on her–her father’s watch–and chucked it at Bellamy’s face. He flinched but still caught it, surprise marring his features. A tiny whisper of satisfaction rose up inside her, that she had shocked the High Lord of the Night Court. It wasn’t a feat she assumed was easily done.

As Clarke watched him thoughtfully turn her most prized possession over in his hand however, she grew desperate to have it back. It was the last piece of her father that she had left–

“I’ll give it back,” he murmured, gaze connecting suddenly with hers. The sympathy in it stunned her.

Silently, she held out her hand. His fingers curled around the watch, as if to keep it, and she narrowed her eyes. With a sigh, Bellamy relented, dropping it into her hand. The metal was warm from his palm, and Clarke suppressed a shudder that went through her at feeling his heat.

“Your rooms are on the second floor,” he explained. “East wing.”

“What? No dungeon cell for me?”

“You’re not a prisoner, Clarke. You’re a–guest.”

She snorted, and he raised his eyebrows in question.

“A guest can leave whenever she wants,” she replied testily.

“I’ll take you back right now, if that’s what you want. Bargain be damned.”

Annoyance prickled under her skin, because she heard the arrogant, knowing tone underneath. He _knew_ she didn’t want to go back, but he was going to make her say it. Pursing her lips, she replied, “I’m tired. I’ll have you take me back in the morning.”

Bellamy just stepped aside from the doorway and gestured for her to walk through. She did without a second glance back, the large skirts of her dress swishing against the steel floor of the hallway.

_Burn that thing, please_ , he teased in her mind. _It looks atrocious on you._

“Fuck off,” she called over her shoulder, and his chuckle echoed down the hall after her.

* * *

The next morning she woke late enough that she missed breakfast. As she dressed in the clothes that had been left for her, she realized it was the first full night of sleep she had gotten in–three months. Her throat closed up at the thought. She had still had nightmares–oh, she could remember them perfectly–but she had slept without waking up to scream, or throw up, or fight for breath as panic and guilt and sorrow ravaged her body.

So when she arrived in the dining room to find Bellamy at the table with lunch waiting, Clarke didn’t say a word about whether she was leaving or staying. Instead, she sat and started piling food on her plate. He played along, not saying a word either, simply watching her as she ate.

It might have been odd, but the rumbling in her stomach and the welcome flavor of the food made Clarke forget anything but filling the sudden emptiness– _hunger_ , she realized–she could now finally again feel inside of her.

“Home sweet home,” Bellamy announced in a sharply sarcastic tone after they arrived in the sunny meadow just south of Finn’s mansion.

Clarke jerked away from him, scowling. He didn’t let her get far though, grabbing her wrist and bringing it up between them. His eyes flashed with something–worry, fear, _concern_ –that made her breath catch.

“When I’m back next month, your mental wards better be strong,” he warned. He glanced pointedly down at the way his hand encircled her wrist–her thin, thin, thin bony wrist, completely, too easily.

_The rest of you better be stronger too_ , he scoffed inside her head.

Clarke wrenched away and turned her back on him. Fury pulsing in her veins, she ran for the house that had been her haven. This was where she should belong, in the sunlight, with Finn.

(She didn’t think about how her steps weren’t as hurried or as sure as they should have been, how every other beat of her heart was an echo pleading for her to turn around and go back, go back to the place where she had slept well and to the person whom had been the one to risk everything to save her Under the Mountain).

* * *

Clarke was ready for him the next time he whisked her away to the Night Court. No sooner had they landed on the same balcony as before then he sifted through her mind. When he slammed against the mental barrier she had erected, she grinned.

“You practiced,” Bellamy said, pleased surprise coloring his tone.

“Don’t need you in my head,” she replied archly. “I believe I’ve told you that before.”

A soft chuckle escaped him, entirely genuine. Clarke tipped her chin up higher, cheeks flushing as his eyes swept up and down her. When a shadow crossed over his face, she cocked her head.

“Get some sleep,” was all he said, turning and walking away. He folded into the darkness so easily, and she swore she heard a rustle of feathers along with his quiet, retreating footsteps.

* * *

She woke to a pair of sparkling brown eyes staring at her. Startling, she reached for the dagger beside her pillow, but a bright, kind laugh stopped her.

“Sorry,” the girl said, not sounding sorry at all. She hopped up from the brocade chair and sat on the bed instead. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Did you mean to scare me to death, then?” Clarke snapped.

She laughed again. “I hope you talk to my brother like that. He needs someone to check his ego down a peg or two.”

“Brother?”

The girl arched a brow, and suddenly Clarke saw small traces of Bellamy. She stilled, because she never imagined him having a family. Thoughts of what Cage could have done with that information made her shiver– _how had he manage to keep his sister safe?_

“I’m Octavia,” she announced. “And I’ve come to get you for breakfast.”

Clarke scowled. “So I’m being summoned then?”

“You could always say no,” Octavia answered with a shrug. “But I wouldn’t want to miss what comes after breakfast, if I were you.”

The answer was so easy, so guileless, that Clarke didn’t feel manipulated into asking, “What comes after?”

Octavia smiled brightly, got up, and sauntered to the door. “We show you all our Night Court secrets,” she replied with a teasing wink.

Sighing, Clarke dragged herself out of bed. Her curiosity was piqued, not only by Octavia’s hints but by the girl herself, and what it meant that Bellamy seemed alright with her knowing that he had a sister.

* * *

It was harder, going back to the Spring Court this time. Harder, because she knew about Octavia, and the war that Bellamy saw coming (Cage might be dead, but his queen was not, and she was out for blood, for vengeance, for all of them, for their land and their lives and the land and lives beyond the Wall too). Harder, because she _knew_ about those things, but Finn couldn’t know. She couldn’t tell him, not because Bellamy asked her to keep any secrets, but because she wanted to keep those secrets. Finn had shut her out of his plans for so long, not explaining what patrols he was gone so long for or why she couldn’t leave the grounds. It felt a little too good to shut him out in the same way, even if he didn’t know it.

So when he yanked her into a hug upon her return, anger and relief thrumming under his skin at the same time, Clarke smiled into his shoulder. She was happy to be back of course–she loved him, a love that had saved them all–but she was also happy there was a small part of her that he could never have.

* * *

On her next trip to the Night Court, she managed to not only push Bellamy out of her mind, but to enter his mind too. Delight filled her at the accomplishment, but then she saw herself through his eyes: scrawny, exhausted, long and tangled dirty hair, sunken eyes with dark circles underneath, nothing in them: no fire, no emotion, not anything but a deadness. The shock of it snapped her back into her own body, and she barely registered Bellamy’s wry grin.

“Am I–am I really that bad?” she whispered.

“Worse, some days,” he joked softly.

All she could manage to do was frown at him, thoughts too occupied with the image of herself now burned into her memory. She was practically a living corpse; she thought she would’ve been stronger enough to not let herself slip away like that. Clarke thought of the Mountain, of Finn, of all the little bits of her that had been chipped and chiseled away by the immense pleasure and enormous pain that those two things had brought her in equal measure over the past few months. She thought of Bellamy, of Octavia, who made jokes and comments that poked at her wounds, never maliciously but enough to remind her they were there and not healed, just ignored. They didn’t let her ignore those wounds, made her face the pain, made her begin to think about what it would take to overcome it instead.

With steel in her voice, she faced Bellamy head on and asked him to come at her mind again. He smiled, feral and proud.

* * *

Clarke had been back at Spring Court for a week, and she had been suffocating for almost as long. The permission she had gained last time to go about the grounds had been revoked–too many attacks on their borders, Finn had said.

_I can’t lose you_ , he had whispered, desperation lacing every syllable. _Just trust me._

The words he was waiting for– _I do trust you_ –caught in her throat, unable to be spoken because they were no longer true. Her trust was starting to bind her to someone else now, even if she couldn’t admit it. Still, their love had saved Arkadia, so she smiled brittlely at him, because what else could she do but endure her happily ever after.

* * *

Clarke snuck out for a horseback ride one afternoon (she just needed to breathe fresh air for a little while, just a _little_ while) and she came back to find Finn’s study ripped to shreds. She stared in horror at the destruction he had caused because of her, jumping when he spoke behind her.

“I thought they had taken you.”

“They?”

Finn just closed his eyes and shuddered in pain. Clarke couldn’t help but embrace him, knowing he was remembering the way he had been helpless Under the Mountain, helpless to help her, even as she was going through hell.

When he hugged her back, she didn’t feel peace, not unease, but rather nothing.

He gave her a box of paints and brushes as an apology for his outburst. Clarke didn’t, _couldn’t_ , touch them, her mind a terrifying void of blackness and nothing whenever she tried to create. Art needed emotion, and all of hers had been buried Under the Mountain along with the human and Fae corpses she had left in her wake.

She just thanked him in a hollow voice, closed the box, and shoved it under bed after he left her room.

* * *

“Where are you going?” Clarke called down the stairs just as Finn was heading out the mansion’s front door.

He paused, sending the rest of his guards ahead of him. Not that they would’ve been any help to her. Raven was the only one who had stood up to Finn for her. Raven was now gone, sent on an important and long-term mission. It was far away from the Spring Court where she could be of no help to Clarke and no obstacle to Finn and his overprotective nature.

“Another patrol. I”ll be back within the week.”

Clarke’s heart squeezed. “Take me with you,” she blurted.

Finn froze, turning his head over his shoulder. “No.”

“I want to be involved. I’ve been practicing–”

His eyes flashed, knowing _when_ and with _whom_ she had been practicing. “Just because he tells you that there is a war supposedly coming, and puts a weapon in your hand again, doesn’t mean you should be fighting.”

“We need to fight,” she insisted, treading closer to him. “Before the war is at our doorstep, before–.”

“There is no war! Besides, you’ve fought enough for us,” Finn replied softly, some of the anger leaving his face. “ _We’ve_ fought enough for us. We won, Clarke. The war is done; we shouldn’t be fighting at all. You shouldn’t even have to think of fighting or war.”

“Or apparently I shouldn’t be thinking at all,” she muttered bitterly under her breath.

When he frowned in confusion, she sighed. “Please, _please_ take me with you.”

“No.”

It was a quiet word, but a killing blow. A sharp pain sliced through her as Clarke watched him stride through the door without a second look back. Desperate, she chased after him, determined to make him change his mind, but as she reached the door, she slammed into an invisible wall. Stunned, she tried again, her head ringing when she came up against the unseeable solidness once more. She banged her fist, a hoarse cry leaving her when she realized what was going on.

Finn had warded her inside, for her _safety_ no doubt. He had locked her up, like a precious item, like a breakable thing.

Like the prisoner in a cell she had been Under the Mountain, like those humans in the cage she had watched burn alive. Bile ran up the back of her throat, and she tried to maintain her grip on reality. She wasn’t underground, she wasn’t at the mercy of a mad king, she wasn’t fighting for her life.

Except maybe she was–maybe this was just another battle, and one she was losing. Silver swirls appeared across her spotting vision, and Clarke remembered the last time she had been losing and who had come to help her. Her left hand flexed, tendrils of warmth growing up her arm. She wanted out, _out, **OUT–**_

With a cry, she released her pain outwards in a swirl of wind and darkness until she could see nothing but glittering black. She very much wanted to dissolve into the blackness, to slip into the folds of the void and never come out. Faint shouts of shock and fear reached her, but it was only Octavia’s clear, commanding voice that truly cut through the veil around her.

“I’ve got her,” she said. “I’ve got her.”

Arms came around her limp figure– _why was she lying down_ –and Clarke bucked against the contact.

“I’m getting you out of here,” Octavia murmured fiercely in her ear to reassure her. “He sent me. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

_It’s safe_ –Bellamy’s words upon her first trip to the Night Court came back to her, and she let Octavia sweep her up and carry her away.

* * *

“It’s not my week,” she croaked when she woke up in her Night Court bed and saw him sitting with head hanging and elbows propped up on his knees.

Bellamy snapped his head up to look at her, fury and worry etched deeply into his freckled face. After taking a deep breath, he murmured firmly, “You don’t have to stay here, if you don’t want to, but you don’t have to ever, _ever_ go back there again either.” He paused, as if struggling, but then finished. “But only if you don’t want to, that is.”

Clarke turned her head to look at him more fully. She took in the way he was holding himself, reigning in the anger at her situation and instead keeping his expression calm, comforting. He was putting her needs first.

Tears pricked her eyes, and soon enough she was sobbing. Clarke let the bottled-up pain of the last few months out in wrenching breaths and ragged cries, curling into herself. Warmth surrounded her, and she clung to Bellamy’s neck as he picked her up and brought her back to the chair. She let herself go in his arms. His hand chest stroked her back comfortingly and he didn’t try and whisper words of consolation at her. Bellamy just let her grieve, because no one had allowed her that painful privilege until now.

Her heart cracked open at his simple but momentous gesture. She let out another sob, but this time it was tinged with relief.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a mess about this series, bascially.


End file.
